Surname distribution in the US (Credit: National Geographic) - use the links below to view the full-size original

A new interactive map, released by National Geographic, shows the distribution of common surnames across the United States – and where those names came on.

Geographers at University College London compiled the data with phone directories, finding the most common surname in each region and then tracing them on the map. British names, displayed in light blue, are by far the most common, although many others can be seen too.

Is your surname in there somewhere? You can view the full interactive map here.

Weddings are a perfect time for families to celebrate some of the most meaningful rituals and traditions passed down from generation to generation. One such tradition is the wedding dance. Even in modern times, dance plays an integral role in the wedding and serves as a homage to the bride and groom's own cultural heritage — and what better way to celebrate than with a folk dance, waltz or jitterbug, right?

Many people stumble across family secrets in their lives, but this week we’ve seen revelations from someone far more public than most. Oprah Winfrey, appearing on her television show on Monday, revealed that she has a long-lost half-sister. You can see a little of this encounter below:

We’re pleased to introduce a significant update of our Smart Matching technology. The new enhancements, unveiled on the website this week, include an overhaul of all Smart Matching pages, new collaboration features and easier management of Smart Matches, making this technology even more powerful and easy to use.

Smart Matching was originally acquired by MyHeritage.com from Pearl Street Software. We first released this innovative technology on MyHeritage.com in 2007, and have been improving it ever since. The technology matches between the people in your family tree and more than 680 million people in 17 million other family trees on MyHeritage.com. This can help you discover ancestors and relatives, by harnessing the vast collective knowledge of the 54 million registered users on MyHeritage.com. Smart Matches automatically find people from your tree in other trees, so that you and the other tree owners can learn from each other and also get in touch. The matching technology is sophisticated and bridges differences in spelling, phonetics and relationships that may exist between the trees, to locate as many matches as possible without sacrificing accuracy. Why is this so important? Because it can take just one Smart Match to bring a breakthrough in one's research and even change the life of a family, as you can see from many heartwarming user success stories that are posted here on the blog.

If you, dear reader, are not already signed up on MyHeritage.com, you can receive Smart Matches on your family tree for free. Go to http://www.myheritage.com and start a new family tree, or import an existing tree by uploading a GEDCOM file, and you will receive a notification on the discovered Smart Matches by email. We're sure you'll be intrigued by the results!

Let's dive in and look at the new improvements added this week in more detail.

Learning more about how our ancestors lived is very rewarding and brings us a little closer to past generations.

Until recently, there has been little information available on the dates and documentation of the pre-Hispanic era in Latin America. However, we have good news for those who are interested in this area of research: Mexico has created a digital library, Biblioteca Digital Mexicana where you can search and analyze various documents.

The documents available range from the years 500 to 1949. And you can research ancient manuscripts like: Chavero de Huejotzingo, Colombino, Huamantla, Siguenza y Matrícula de tributos, Teachialoyan de Cuajimalpa and la serie del Marquesado del Valle.

It's that time of the year again, when we give thanks to all our volunteers.

During 2010, our small army of some 100 volunteers helped us translate the MyHeritage website and our software program Family Tree Builder into about 25 of the currently available 36 languages.

Thanks to our dedicated volunteers, new languages - like Latvian - are about to be released on the website, and Afrikaans is expected very soon.

We are already working on many additional projects, such as translating the Family Tree Builder User Guide into more languages. A small group of people have also begun helping in the forums, providing answers to common questions posted there.

Our volunteers are a great help for us and we really appreciate their assistance, and we recognize them by the special icon next to their names throughout the website!

A number of genealogy bloggers have been writing and posting for years, and have such extensive archives of material that it'd take weeks to fully imbibe their collective wisdom.

Cunningly, we've found a shorter way to do this. It won't equip you with quite the knowledge you'd get from reading archives of posts, but it will give you a flavour of what these bloggers are talking about.